Review

Reviewed Work(s): Report of the War Cabinet Committee on Women in Industry. Vol. I;
Vol. II
Review by: Edith Abbott
Source: The American Economic Review , Jun., 1920, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Jun., 1920), pp. 358-
362
Published by: American Economic Association

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1804881

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358 Reviewls and New Books [June

BEARD, C. A. The traction crisis in New York. (New York: Bureau

of Municipal Research, 261 Broadway. 1919. Pp. 29. 25c.)

Public utilities reports annotated, containinq decisions of the public

service commissions and of state and federal courts. (Rochester,
N. Y.: Lawyers Cobperative Pub. Co. 1919. Pp. 1176.)

Labor and Labor Organizations

Report of the War Cabinet Committee on Women in Industry.
Vol. I (Cmd. 135); Vol. II, Appendices, Summaries of Evi-
dence, etc. (Cmd. 167). (London: His Majesty's Station-
ery Office. 1919. Pp. 341; 250.)
This unique and interesting government document is the report
prepared by a special committee appointed by the British War
Cabinet in August, 1917, "to investigate and report on the rela-
tion which should be mnaintained between the wages of women and
men having regard to the interests of both as well as the value of
their work." It should be said at the outset that we have not one
report but two: a majority report, signed by five members of the
committee (all of whom are reported to have been salaried gov-
ernment employees) ; and a brilliant minority report, signed by
Mrs. Sidney Webb. The important recommendations of the ma-
jority may be summarized as follows: First, as to the general
level of women's wages, the committee protest emphatically against
a return to the old pre-war level, and they recommend the adop-
tion of a statutory subsistence wage for women to secure physical
health and efficiency. Taking sharp issue with certain women wit-
nesses who testified before the committee, the majority hold that
the woman's subsistence wage should be lower than the man's sub-
sistence wage.' That is, they recommend that the woman's sub-
sistence wage should be based, not as in the case of men on the
requirements of a normal family, but on the needs of a single
woman. Without any adequate inquiry into the subject, the
committee assume that single women have only themselves to
support. They remain confronted with the problem of the widow
who is obviously in need of a family wage, and they hastily recom-
mend "mothers' pensions." They refer to the United States as
having "solved" this problem by means of mothers' pension laws,
without any inquiry as to how satisfactory our American laws
may be in practice. That is, so far as the working mother is con-
cerned, the majority really go back to the old poor-law system
and recommend that wages should be supplemented out of taxes in

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1920] Labor and Labor Organizations 359

proportion to the number of children the woman may have to

support. Would the maj ority apply this, by the way, to the
mothers of illegitimate children and to deserted wives?
It is, however, when the committee come to consider the rela-
tion between the wages of women and men in the same occupation
that the real battle begins, and here lies the chief interest of the
report. For the first time we have an attempt to state the prob-
leins involved in the modern use of the old once respected formlula
"equal pay for equal work," a formula which in an earlier day ap-
peared to carry with it implications of justice and fair dealing
but which has failed in practice because of the immense difficul-
ties in the way of determining what constitutes "equal work."
Miss Mary MacArthur, representing the National Federation
of Women Workers, protested in her testimony (Cmd. 167, p.
15) that "equal pay for equal work-meaning equal pay for iden-
tical work-is, in practice and always will be, a useless formula."
Miss MacArthur contended that in cases where the work is abso-
lutely identical there are few employers who will admit this fact
without qualification. The formula imposes the onus of proof on
the individual and it is almost impossible to collect convincing evi-
dence. The men have almost certainly gone before the women
start on the work, and no reliable figures probably exist of the
men's output. The employer alone possesses exact statistics of
the present output. In nine cases out of ten the bulk of the
work going through the factory varies from day to day, and the
processes often vary, so as to make any exact comparison almllost
impossible. The policy of equal pay for identical work, or
even the policy of comparative equality of cost to the emplover as
between men and women, will therefore in practice prove a means
of subdividing and lowering the rate and would certainly result in
the reduction of the standard of life.
The majority report acknowledges that the rejection of the
old "equal pay for equal work" formula, and the substitution of
the more workable principle "equal time rates" or the "rate for
the job" was urged upon them by the "Women's Unions and So-
cieties connected with labor, and by practically all the general and
mixed unions. It was urged with force by and on behalf of the
Amalgamated Society of Engineers...." Nevertheless, the
Committee recommend the old formula which they re-define as
"pay in proportion to efficient output." The effect of the new
formula would, they thought, tend to diminish the emnployment of

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360 Review?s rind Ne"z Books [June

women, and this mighit have serious consequences. "We are un-
able," say the committee, to "recommeiid at tl-his juncture of the
national life a change bringing such (loubtful advantages to men
and fraught with such serious injury to women as we believe would
result from the adoption of the formula 'equal-time rates.'" This
possibility of a decline in the employment of women resulting froml
the adoption of "equal-time rates" is discussed by numerous wit-
nesses. Miss MacArthur held that to give to the women who took
oni a man's work, the man's rate for the job would tend to exclude
women if they were of lower economic value to the employer. In
such cases (e.g., where the work is especially laborious) she holds
that it is not in the interest of the community that the employ-
ment of women
should be made economically advantageous to the employer.... In
normal times women are only employed on heavy laboring work on
account of their cheapness. The Federation think this highly unde-
sirable and press for the rate for the job even more strongly in the
cases where the figures of production show that the woman is under-
taking tasks for which she is not fitted.

Mr. G. D. H. Cole also faced the possibility of a reduction in the

number of women employed if the labor formula were accepted.
"The principle of determining a ratio between the economic value
of men and women and paying wages accordingly is not work-
able," said Mr. Cole (Cmd. 167, p. 46). Equal pay for the same
occupation must be insisted upon. This would tend to drive
women out of industries where they are not of equal economic
value to employers.
But the case against the old formula is put so persuasively and
so conclusively by Mrs. Sidney Webb that it is a waste of time
to quote further from other testimony representing this point of
view. Mrs. Webb challenges the recommendation of a lower sub-
sistence wage for women and the justification of the lower wage
oni the ground that women have no family obligation. Mrs. Webb
sees no possibility of making provision for dependents by means
of wages varying in amount according to the actual family obliga-
tions of the persons concerned. The employers will not listen to
any genuine apportionment of wages according to the number of
dependents, because they necessarily insist on limiting the amount
that they pay to each operator to the value to themselves of the
service performed. But what, precisely, is meant by family ob-
ligations ?

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1920] Labor and Labor Organizations 361

In addition to children, many wage-earners of either sex support,

wholly or in part, an invalid wife (or husband), a superannuated
father, a widowed mother, an orphan brother or sister, aged grand-
parents. . .. Now (such) family obligations .. . are common to
wage-earners of both sexes. . It has been suggested . that
wage-earning women, as a whole, pay more towards the support of
their parents and other relatives than wage-earning men do.

The principle of determining wages by family obligations has

not, says Mrs. Webb, been adopted wlhen it is a question of pay-
ing more where there are depelndents, but it is "habitually pleaded
as a complete justification for the existence of a female rate, out
of all proportion lower than the male rate."
As to "equal pay for equal work," Mrs. Webb regards this as
a fashionable formula at the moment but not as an accepted prin-
ciple since there is no common interpretation of its meaning. She
shows that it is diversely interpreted as: (1) equal pay for equal
efforts and sacrifices; (2) equal pay for equal product; and (3)
equal pay for equal value to the employer. "Hence any adop-
tion of the formula would lead to endless misunderstandings be-
tween employers and employed and increased industrial friction."
The popular interpretation has perhaps been the second; but
even equal piece rates for men and women (as distinguished from
equal time rates) are opposed by many employers. Witness the
testimony of one employer who claims that piece work rates as be-
tween men and women should "vary according toi the different per-
centages of 'overlhead charges' that particular classes of opera-
tives are said to involve"; and the testimony of another employer
who justifies lower piece work rates for women because "a woman
lhas not the same potential value as a man." Therefore the in-
evritable result of the "equal pay for equal product" interpreta-
tion and a "woman's rate" not corresponding with or propor-
tionate to any differences in output.
As to the third interpretation, Mrs. Webb notes the objection
emiiployers have urged that in particular occupations the great
bulk of women are less efficient than the common run of men.
Broadly speaking, says Mrs. Webb, in some occupations this
may be true; but this does not in itself justify the existence of a
male occupational rate and a female occupational rate for the
same work. Mrs. Webb says:
I see no justification for classifying together all the workers of one
sex, and subjecting them all to a differential rate. It is admitted that
some women are, in nearly all occupations, foun)d to be superior in

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362 Reviews and New, Books [June

efficiency to the common run of men; and I can discover no ground

for penalizing these exceptional women because of the industrial in-
feriority of the mass of their colleagues. Exactly the same would be
true if, in certain occupations requiring brute strength (such as steel
smelting) the workers were classified irrespective of sex, according to
whether they were over or below five-feet-five in height. or nine stone
in weight.

Moreover, if women are inferior industrially, and, in a given oc-

cupation, for example, the work of three women is in general
only equal to the work of two men, Mrs. Webb sees here not an
argument for a lower occupational rate for women but an argui-
ment for the employment of men.

It is clearly uneconomical for the community to exact the efforts

and sacrifices of three women for output which could be produced by
the efforts and sacrifices of two men. Hence there is no public ad-
vantage but actually a sheer national loss in bribing the employer by
permitting him to pay lower wages, or to make special deductions
from the occupational rate to get his work done by workers indus-
trially less efficient-whether women or men-as long as many more
efficient workers for the task required are available.

Mrs. Webb's unassailable logic could not convince her col-

leagues because the questions of women's employment are not now
and, in any near future, will not be decided by weight of argu-
ment. They will be decided by weight of tradition, social pre-
judices, and expediency in the narrow sense. But Mrs. Webb has
made so brilliant a statement of the case for the abolition of
"women's rates" that her report should have great value as an
ed(ucational document, and it is hoped that the recently issued
cheap reprint1 of it will find its way to this country.
Justice cannot be done within the limits of a review to the valu-
able collection of material in the report and in the appendices con-
taining the summaries of evidence. Especial mention must be
made, however, of the evidence submitted by six English econo-
mists, Professors Cannan, Pigou, Bowley, and Gonner, Mr. Henry
Clay, and Mr. J. H1. Jones. Professor Cannan's characteristically
punigent statement follows the main lines of his analysis of the
subject of women's work in Wealth (1913); but, fortunately for
the reader, he expands delightfully his earlier statement.
EDITH ABBOTT.
The Univcrsity of Chicago.
1 The Wagos of Men and lWornen: Should They be Equal? by Mrs. Sidney
WVebb, published by the Fabian Society and by Allen and Unwin Ltd., pp. 79.
A reprint of the Minority Report, with an introduction by Mrs. Webb.

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